Posted: 2/27/04

Freedom panel recommends 11 nations for sanctions

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—A federal panel charged with monitoring global religious freedom conditions has picked 11 countries as the world’s worst violators of that basic human right.

The commission has asked Secretary of State Colin Powell to declare Burma, North Korea, Eritrea, India, Iran, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam as countries of particular concern, or CPCs, under the terms of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act.

That act established an ambassador-at-large position in the State Department for monitoring religious freedom. It also created the commission, an independent federal watchdog group appointed by the president and congressional leaders from both parties.

The commission monitors religious freedom conditions around the globe and makes regular recommendations to the State Department, including the designation of the CPCs.

The act also enables the State Department, if it follows the committee’s recommendations, to enact a number of sanctions against an offending nation.

The commission said it is recommending those 11 countries because of “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom that (their) governments are responsible for or have tolerated.”

The commission was divided on India, with a minority of commissioners feeling India’s toleration of violations by some local and regional governments did not rise to the level of CPC recommendation. Those three commissioners filed a dissenting opinion recommending that India be placed on a watch list of nations with concerns about religious freedom.

The other nations on the watch list include Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Georgia, Indonesia, Laos, Nigeria and Uzbekistan.

This is the fourth time the commission has asked the State Department to declare Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan as CPCs. The department has not yet heeded the commission’s recommendations.

Both Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan are considered close allies of the United States in the global war on terrorism. But a State Department report released late last year admitted religious freedom does not exist in Saudi Arabia.

Commission Chair Michael Young, in a letter to Powell accompanying the recommendations, also asked the secretary to take more advantage of the powers granted to him under the International Religious Freedom Act.

“CPC designation carries an obligation that one or more of certain actions … be taken, unless the president determines that pre-existing sanctions are adequate or otherwise waives the requirement,” Young noted. “Yet for every country named a CPC to date, the only official actions taken (by the State Department) have been to invoke already-existing sanctions rather than taken additional action to advance religious freedom.”

The commission requested a meeting with Powell to discuss the report prior to his decisions about CPC designations.

Posted: 2/27/04

ABC, CBF in on formation of new ecumenical effort

By John Pierce

Baptists Today

ATLANTA (ABP)—Leaders of the American Baptist Churches in the USA and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship say they are excited about potential opportunities for formal dialogue with other U.S. Christians, including Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Evangelicals and Pentecostals.

Both Baptist groups’ governing bodies are taking steps toward becoming founding members of Christian Churches Together in the USA. A much broader fellowship than the current National Council of Churches, CCT is seeking to embrace the widest range of Christian communities.

“Our general board has authorized us to become a part of it officially,” said ABC General Secretary Roy Medley, adding final documents and cost estimates are still forthcoming.

“It will give us a place to have the spectrum of our family represented,” said Medley, noting American Baptists range from evangelical to liberal.

Unlike bodies that pass resolutions and take specific political positions, Medley said he is attracted to CCT’s conciliar approach. CCT “will be more about conversations and mutual knowledge of one another’s faith and traditions,” he predicted.

As a result, he added, a wide range of American Christians will likely participate. “That means that Roman Catholics and Evangelical Pentecostals will be involved.”

A CCT steering committee statement welcomes churches and national Christian organizations that “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savoir according to the Scriptures; worship and serve the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and seek ways to work together in order to present a more credible Christian witness in and to the world.”

One unique characteristic of CCT is a consensus approach to decision making.

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Coordinating Council has voted to pursue participation in CCT. John Finley, pastor of First Baptist Church of Savannah, Ga., and a member of the CBF ecumenical task force, spoke in favor of a recommendation that the Fellowship “identify as a founding member.”

Daniel Vestal, CBF coordinator, urged support as well, saying he is impressed by the broad inclusiveness of CCT. “I’ve frankly been waiting for the emergence of some ecumenical body that fits CBF and in which we fit.”

CCT’s intention to include a wide spectrum of Christian communions is a unique and noble effort, Vestal said. He noted that the National Council of Churches lacks the involvement of Roman Catholics and many evangelicals, while the National Association of Evangelicals includes no other Christian traditions.

This is the most ambitious ecumenical effort ever put forth,” said Vestal.

CCT has loosely identified five “families”—Evangelical/Pentecostal, Historic Protestant, Historic Racial/Ethnic, Orthodox and Roman Catholic—to assure broad participation.

Focusing on dialogue is the only way to bring together such a broad spectrum of Christians, Medley said. “There is a real effort in this to keep everybody at the table.”

During a planning session in Texas in early January, participants were asked to gather by “families.” The challenge for Baptists may be in knowing exactly where they fit.

“I went to the Historic Protestant faith family,” Vestal told the coordinating council, “and Roy (Medley) went to the Evangelical one.”

The designation of these five families will not play a major role in CCT, but it simply assures wide participation, Medley said.

Regardless of how Baptists identify themselves among the broader Christian community in the United States, Medley said, the efforts of CCT connect well with the “longtime commitment of American Baptists to bridge denominational barriers and create an ability to work with others for the sake of the gospel.”

Posted: 2/27/04

BWA committee shares blame for SBC pull-out, member says

By John Pierce

Baptists Today

NASHVILLE (ABP)—Baptist historian Albert Wardin, a member of the Baptist World Alliance membership committee that recommended including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in the worldwide group, said blame for the reaction from Southern Baptist leaders can be placed on several shoulders.

“If there had been more Christian charity and sensitivity on all sides, the division would not have occurred,” Wardin, emeritus professor of history at Belmont University in Nashville, wrote in a letter to Baptists Today newspaper.

Many share the blame for the planned departure of the Southern Baptist Convention from the BWA, Wardin said in a statement countered by BWA and Fellowship leaders.

He begins with the committee on which he served.

“The (BWA) membership committee … is to be seriously faulted,” said Wardin, the only committee member to vote against CBF acceptance. “It is a committee created by the administration of the BWA and was particularly influenced by individuals from Western Europe who had no sympathy for the SBC leadership, and its concerns were more ideologically in tune with the CBF.”

Additionally, Wardin claimed the membership committee broke its own rule of not recommending membership of any Baptist body if there was objection from a current BWA member.

“In all of this,” said Wardin, “the administration of the BWA was also as culpable since it did not stop the action on constitutional grounds and long-standing policy.”

Denton Lotz, BWA general secretary, disagreed with Wardin’s assessment of the committee’s process and conclusions.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he responded to Wardin’s charge that the membership committee’s recommendation violated the BWA constitution. “The (BWA) General Council thought it was constitutional.”

The BWA also never has had a written rule about not including member bodies if any other member objects, Lotz added. In countries where only one member existed, he said, special consideration has been given to the current member before bringing in a second body if there is conflict.

“But there are 14 member bodies in the U.S.,“ he pointed out. Strong efforts were made to work with both SBC and CBF leaders, he added.

“There have been cases when other member bodies were accepted when there were particular objections,” added Ruby Burke, assistant to the BWA general secretary who met with the membership committee.

Burke said she was the only BWA staff member involved in the committee process and Wardin gave the lone opposing vote to including the CBF. Another member abstained during the final vote.

“It was a membership committee decision,” said Burke, “Dr. Lotz had nothing to do with this.”

In fact BWA President Billy Kim “asked me not to participate in the committee’s decision,” Lotz reported.

Wardin said the BWA General Council showed its negative feelings toward the SBC by approving the recommendation of the membership committee by majority vote.

“In spite of the protestation today of love for the SBC, a number of General Council representatives have been critical of the current theological stance of the SBC leadership and its unilateral action,” Wardin said. “As has been noted, numbers of the BWA look upon the SBC as many in Western Europe today look upon the U.S.A. as too big and powerful and too often acting only on its own.”

Wardin claimed the Fellowship got the recognition it sought, but at a high cost.

In response, Fellowship Coordinator Daniel Vestal said recognition was not one of the reasons the organization sought inclusion in the BWA.

“CBF’s application for membership in the BWA was not to gain recognition,” Vestal said, “but to be a full participant in the world Baptist family.”

Blaming the Fellowship for the SBC’s proposed withdrawal is misplaced, Vestal added. “To blame CBF for the actions of the SBC is like blaming the abused wife for the behavior of the abusive husband.”

Fellowship leaders do not wish for Southern Baptists to leave the worldwide body they helped form nearly a century ago, Vestal added.

As a longtime supporter and participant, Wardin said he has been “most disturbed about the proposed separation of the SBC from the BWA” and is aware of the need for inter-Baptist cooperation worldwide.

Wardin said he agrees with John Briggs of Oxford that the BWA today is more conservative and has a more limited theological range than it had when founded by Southern Baptists and others in 1905. It is unfortunate, he said, that SBC leaders have tried to brand the BWA as “an organization on the path of theological deviation.”

“But the application of the CBF and its acceptance by the membership committee of the BWA brought again to the fore the underlying discontent with certain aspects of the BWA,” he said.

In the membership committee report presented last July, Chairman Ian Hawley of Australia gave a different perspective on the committee’s action. He wrote: “The membership committee in bringing this recommendation has not done so lightly or easily, … (but) we believe that this recommendation is the only fair and right decision that could be made.”

Posted: 2/27/04

Bush again circumvents Senate; appoints Pryor federal judge

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)—For the second time, President Bush has used a special administrative maneuver to install a controversial nominee to a federal court.

On Feb. 20, at the end of Congress’ Presidents’ Day recess, Bush used his recess-appointment power to place Republican Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Pryor is among six of Bush’s appeals-court nominees who have been held up due to Democratic filibusters.

Democrats object to some of Pryor’s statements and actions on church-state and abortion-rights issues, arguing he is an extremist and would be a conservative “judicial activist.”

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) called Bush’s recess appointment of Pryor “an abuse of power.” The recess-appointment provision allows a president to install any of his nominees without the normal approval of the Senate while Congress is in recess.

On Jan. 16, Bush used Congress’ Martin Luther King Jr. Day recess to appoint Mississippi judge Charles Pickering to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Pickering had also been the subject of a filibuster, with Senate Democrats arguing that his record on civil rights, church-state issues and abortion is extreme.

In announcing Pryor’s appointment, Bush said the nominee’s “impressive record demonstrates his devotion to the rule of law and to treating all people equally under the law. He has received widespread bipartisan support from those who know him and know his record.”

Some Republicans argued that Pryor, who is a conservative Catholic, and Pickering, who is a former president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, were victims of “religious profiling” because of their faith.

But Democrats noted they had already approved dozens of Bush’s Catholic and Baptist nominees. They also noted Pryor was less-than-orthodox in his Catholic faith, since his public position in support of the death penalty directly contradicts Roman Catholic doctrine.

Pryor sparked controversy for his support of former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s effort to display a monument to the Ten Commandments in the state’s judicial headquarters building. However, Pryor ultimately turned against Moore after Moore defied federal court demands to remove the monument from the building’s rotunda.

Pryor served as Moore’s prosecutor in the state judicial-ethics trial that ultimately resulted in Moore’s removal from office.

Posted: 2/25/04

Needle and thread become tools
for ministry at First Baptist Church, Plano

By George Henson

Staff Writer

PLANO—Needle and thread can be prime tools for ministry, Margaret Shafer believes. And she is teaching women both inside and outside her church to use them.

Several women in Shafer's Sunday school class at First Baptist Church of Plano approached her nearly four years ago about teaching them to quilt. She agreed but thought it would be a short-lived venture once they discovered how time-consuming the work was.

"I didn't think they were too serious, quite frankly," she admitted.

Apparently they were. Each week, 29 women meet for fellowship and to work on their quilting projects. Not all the women are from Shafer's Sunday school class anymore, or even from her church. In fact, the group now boasts participants from six denominations.

All share not only a joy of quilting, but also a desire to minister. Each year, the group makes quilts for a Hispanic mission church.

"We decided that making something we could share with others was something we wanted to do—something we needed to do," Shafer said. She acknowledges that it was a year after the group started before they took up the mission project.

"We weren't sure we were good enough. But I don't think there is anything they won't try now," she said.

In addition to expanding their project line to include handbags and vests, as well as quilts, they also have adopted new ministry projects.

The First Baptist quilting group is helping the Red Hat Quilting Club, a new ministry Shafer started at an assisted-living facility. She teaches more than a dozen women at Plano's Life Care Center to make quilts for themselves and a large one to auction. Each participant in the club wears a distinctive red hat of her own choosing.

Since arthritic hands no longer allow the members of the Red Hat Quilting Club to maneuver a needle and thread, the women who meet at First Baptist Church cut out cloth in shapes for them and apply a backing to make them iron-ons.

In February, for instance, various-sized hearts became the pads for the hands and feet of teddy bears. While Shafer provided the shapes and an example, members of the Red Hat Quilting Club applied them where they liked, making each one unique.

Scoring the backing with a hat pin and peeling it from the fabric also provides therapy for hands and fingers.

In addition to cutting out the shapes for their older friends, the First Baptist quilters also stitch around the edge of each square and do any sewing that is needed, such as fastening button eyes onto teddy bears.

"These ladies put a lot of time and effort into things they'll never see," Shafer said. "They are just so willing to give of their time and money for these ministry projects, it's wonderful."

The First Baptist quilters are glad to help the Red Hat quilters create things they can be proud of, said Celia Price, a charter member of the church-based quilting group.

"I have a dad who died in a nursing home, and my mom is borderline ready. You just come to a point in your life where you realize you won't always be able to do all you want to do, and you need to help others while you can," she said.

Barbara Roberts, another member of First Baptist, came to the club because her mother-in-law had made the top of a quilt featuring a donkey. Roberts wanted to finish the quilt, but didn't know how.

She finished that project long ago and now is happy to help others the way she was helped.

"It's good to know that you can help someone too," she said. "I could be in that home some day—we might all be there—and it's nice to be able to help them make something pretty."

While the women are glad to help the Red Hat quilters and make the quilts for the Hispanic mission, they particularly are proud of what they refer to as "the quilt"—their first major project.

In March 2001, the women were asked to create a quilt for First Baptist Church's 150th anniversary that August. Shafer looked at old photographs of the church's various buildings and drew sketches for each square. She also drew pictures of the various churches First Baptist in Plano had started as missions. She then included drawings of the church's stained glass windows.

The 15 women then involved each took squares. When combined, their work became the church's sesquicentennial quilt.

"These ladies just took those drawings of mine and went to work on them, and what we wound up with is just beautiful," Shafer said. The quilt hangs in the church's welcome center as a commemoration of the church's history.

Teaching women to quilt has been one of great joys of Shafer's life.

"It's the most satisfying thing I've ever done to see these ladies develop in their skills to the point that they have," she said.

Shafer's gift just keeps on giving, Price added.

"You can't keep this kind of thing to yourself. My husband keeps asking me, 'When do we get to keep one?" she said with a smile.

Posted: 2/24/04

COMMENTARIES ON
'THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST':
A passionate appeal

By Randy Bissell

I would like to explain to fellow Christians why I am hesitant about seeing the long-anticipated Mel Gibson-produced movie about Christ’s death, “The Passion of the Christ.”

Please understand that it is not my intention to persuade any other Christian to see or not to see the film. I have no agenda for encouraging a boycott the movie. I am simply asking myself if it is a film that I ought to see. To that end, I have begun questioning what my fellow Christians may be seeking or anticipating from this cinematic experience.

Like many Christians, I have eagerly read numerous articles and editorials about the upcoming release of the “controversial” film. I’m sure that others have chuckled over the seemingly false accusations of anti-Semitism, most amusingly the worry over whether or not the “Jews” killed Jesus—or if the film is too soft on the Romans. I suppose that because the Romans are not around anymore, Jews may feel the solitary object of blame for Jesus’ death. If the movie follows the collective theme of the gospels, as it claims, blame will fall with all of us. As both Mel Gibson and the lead actor, James Caviezel, have expressed before the release, we all share the responsibility for the unjust and brutal murder of our Savior.

The principle dimension in the appeal of the upcoming film is well-publicized realism in the brutality of the crucifixion—realistic and bloody enough to require an R rating. The pope is purported to have expressed, “It is as it was.” Billy Graham cried. Mel Gibson, himself, has expressed that some will find the film very disturbing or sickening because of the gore.

Don’t the gospels tell us enough about what happened to Jesus? Are there clear descriptions of the scourging, the crown of thorns, carrying his cross, and Golgotha? Perhaps not! Must I see with my own eyes the flesh flayed from his back, the blood covering his body and matting his hair, the nails piercing the flesh, the water and blood flowing from his side? The movie promises to show me these things in technological splendor. Will it deliver an awesome crucifixion in Dolby digital sound?

As I consider this, I recall that have vividly seen Jesus die a brutal and cruel death many times. Most who have studied the Bible have seen these things. The account—the true account—the only complete account of these things is found in the gospels. The gospels are not screenplays; they are eyewitness accounts of what happened. I have pored over those precious words, savoring their details, realizing that my personal belief, my trusting faith in that forsaken and broken man, Jesus, my Lord, has saved my soul.

Mel Gibson’s interpretation of the crucifixion cannot be good enough. It cannot be correct enough. It cannot be brutal enough. It cannot be complete enough to replace the vision in my mind’s eye of what happened to my Lord. I come away from the gospels keenly aware that I am to blame, that I put Jesus on that cross. And that once and for all, he died for me. Will I come away from the movie knowing that, or will I just see Gibson’s depiction of the horror that Jesus faced? Will that image be so powerful as to replace my personal vision of what happened?

So what are we, as Christians, seeking from this film? What do we seek from the graphic brutality depicted? Does the presentation of indescribable violence to our Lord on the wide-screen make it acceptable because it is “so realistic?” Many of my fellow Christians would label graphic depictions of human sexuality (even between married adults) in the theater as obscenity! Might such graphic violence likewise be obscene?

No doubt many well-meaning Christians plan on taking the kids! Church groups are renting the theaters for viewing by families. Some church schools have suggested field trips for children as young as 6th graders. Forget the R rating! ”See kids, see what they did to Jesus!” “He died that brutal death because of you!” What are children (or the childish) expected to see in the graphic detail of the public execution of God? Might that two hours be better spent sharing the true word from the gospels?

Mel Gibson has made his living in an industry hostile to Christian sensibility and values. The movies he has directed and starred in have largely been excessively violent, even the critically acclaimed and historically themed films. Let me point out that, like many Christians, I am a Mel Gibson fan. He may be a great filmmaker, but is he a trustworthy biblical historian? As an actor, a filmmaker, an artist, his motivation is for everyone to see his work—to see his artful perspective. But is Gibson’s perspective the right one for me and my family? Is it the real story, the fifth gospel or an artful counterfeit? I’m not absolutely sure. Are you?

In discussions of this film, Gibson has been identified as a strong follower of conservative Roman Catholic faith. I honestly believe that in “The Passion” he has sincerely produced the best, most realistic, most accurate film ever about Jesus’ death ever made (not a particularly long list of competitors). But I am suspicious of a film sold on the aspect of the violence done against my Lord, created by a man that holds a particular view of Christianity that perpetuates that violence whenever Mass is celebrated. That sounds anti-Catholic, but I intend no offense.

Am I willing to replace my “once and for all” and support Gibson’s now “showing on three screens” and “coming soon to DVD”? Is my mind’s eye worth giving up for Mel’s vision?.

So, what do we do? Ready to go?

I’m still thinking about it.

Randy Bissell is a petroleum geologist in Corpus Christi

Posted: 2/24/04

COMMENTARIES ON
'THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST':
Envying Mel Gibson

By Erich Bridges

Evangelical Christians are so excited about “The Passion of the Christ” they’re almost selling popcorn in the vestibule.

They’re definitely screening church-tailored clips of the movie in the sanctuary. My church has shown two promotional trailers. Like many other church groups, our youth and their parents plan to attend the movie and invite non-Christian friends.

With the current media uproar about the movie, millions of curious folks will go see it, whether they’re invited or not.

I think that’s great. It’s about time there was some national buzz about something actually worth seeing. And this movie’s explicit depiction of Jesus’ final hours should add to its power.

Back in high school, my Christian friends helped lead me to faith in Jesus by taking me to see “The Exorcist.” It wasn’t their only evangelistic strategy, but it helped seal the deal. That film, the scariest ever made in my opinion, shocked me into confronting the reality of supernatural good and evil in the world—which in turn helped nudge me into the arms of a holy and merciful God.

By faithfully illustrating the gospel, The “Jesus” film has done the same for tens of millions of seekers around the world, becoming one of the most effective evangelistic tools in church history.

Admit it, though, preachers: As you quietly toil over next Sunday’s sermon, you must be envying Mel Gibson, at least a little bit. I sure do.

The guy’s a major movie star, a big-time box office draw. He’s got the looks, but he can act, too. Sure, he hit it big with the mindless “Lethal Weapon” series, but he also made a good film version of “Hamlet”—the ultimate dramatic challenge. He won an Oscar for directing himself in “Braveheart,” the rousing historical epic about Scottish rebel William Wallace. And now, with “The Passion of The Christ,” he could become one of the most influential gospel evangelists of our time—almost overnight.

Some guys get all the breaks.

Breaks actually have little to do with it. Give Gibson the credit he deserves: He’s talented, intelligent and passionate about his work. He earned the considerable clout he wields in Hollywood. And now he’s using it—some would say risking it—to tell the world about a Christ who loves the world so much he endured excruciating suffering for our sins.

We need more Mel Gibsons. As Andy Crouch notes in February’s issue of Christianity Today, conservative believers used to ask, “Should we watch movies?” Later they asked, “What kind of movies should we watch?” Now, more and more are asking, “What kind of movies should we make?”

That last question is exactly the right one if we want to get the attention of our media-driven culture—particularly its younger inhabitants. Spiritual revolution depends at least in part on seizing the means of communication.

Getting attention is critical, but it’s only a first step. That’s where faithful pastors re-enter the picture. People who sincerely choose to follow Christ as Lord after seeing Gibson’s movie—and evangelical leaders predict they will be legion—eventually will visit our churches. The next step is up to us.

The Barna Research Group’s latest study, about the new generation of pastors entering American pulpits, has mixed news on that front.

The number of Protestant pastors from the Baby Bust generation (ages 20-38) has doubled in only two years. They now account for more than 45,000 of the 324,000 senior pastors of American Protestant churches, according to the study.

“In a world where image is king and attention spans are declining, the research shows that young pastors are more likely to experiment with new approaches to teaching and preaching,” the Barna group reports. They more frequently use drama, movies, videos, DVDs, storytelling, art, music, interactive dialogue, lighting and creative arrangements of worship spaces to deliver messages and elicit response.

“These multimedia and experience-laden forms of communication appeal to younger, often postmodern people, who tend to reject external sources of authority in favor of relying on their own experiences and feelings to interpret reality.”

Younger pastors also are more likely than their middle-aged Baby Boomer elders to describe their congregations as seeker-driven and theologically conservative, the study finds. They are “more attuned than are older pastors to the cultural battle for the hearts and minds of young people,” more likely to prioritize family and youth ministry, and more focused on spiritual growth, discipleship and Bible study.

All that sounds great, but there’s a major caveat: “Young pastors are actually less likely than average to say their church prioritizes community, missions, service, social action or prayer,” says David Kinnaman, Barna Research vice president and director of the study.

“Surprisingly, the ‘missing’ priorities of young pastors are some of the exact elements to which members of the young generations (Busters and the even younger Mosaics) gravitate. … Without increased emphasis on these areas, many churches—even those led by young pastors—will find it very difficult to appeal to young people who deeply desire relational authenticity, service to the poor and disadvantaged, globally minded activity, and spiritual depth through prayer.”

All the cool media in the world won’t make up for that shortcoming. True worship always leads to loving action and sacrificial service in a hurting world.

That’s part of what the passion of the Christ is about.

Erich Bridges is a senior writer at the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. His column is distributed by Baptist Press

Posted: 2/24/04

COMMENTARIES ON
'THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST':
Passions and "The Passion'

By David Gushee

Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” is finally set to hit the theaters.

Passions about “The Passion” are running high. Some Christians consider this the most important movie ever and are planning to bring everyone they know. Others, especially Jewish leaders, consider it a dangerous incitement to anti-Semitism. I want to sift through the passions and provide some guidance to those considering seeing the film.

At the center of the Christian faith is a murdered messiah. The largest section of every gospel is the passion narrative—the long, slow, mournful story of Jesus’ last 18 hours on Earth—the Last Supper, the Garden, the betrayal and arrest, the trials, the beating and scourging, and finally the crucifixion.

This story has always incited profound passions. For those who did not believe in Jesus in the first century, a crucified savior was perhaps the ultimate stumbling block. Many still today find it inconceivable that the most important event in human history was the brutal execution of a Jewish itinerant preacher.

Yet the cross has forever stood at the passionate center of Christian piety. Christians have not always agreed about how exactly to describe the significance of what happened on that brutal instrument of execution. But in their hearts they have found common ground at the foot of the cross, staring up sadly at the suffering Savior, transfixed by the vision of the man of sorrows, dying at the hands of men for the sins of the world.

Critics have often worried over whether this central mental image has had a pathological effect on the consciousness of the Christian West. They have been concerned about the development of a morbid self-hatred due to feelings of guilt for sin, a tendency toward exaggerated pessimism about the human condition, and an exaltation of self-sacrifice as the highest act of devotion to God.

There has been yet one more worry, and this one, at least, is well-grounded in history. This is the fear that passionate Christian loyalty to the crucified Savior will evoke hatred of those sometimes deemed responsible for putting him on the cross—”the Jews.”

The average North American Christian finds this worry completely bewildering. We have been taught that Jesus went to the cross voluntarily. We have also been taught that the “group” responsible for putting Jesus on the cross is the entire human race—because Jesus bore the sins of all the world when he died there.

The fact that this is how most North American Christians understand the cross is a major moral achievement of the churches here, one that reflects our long heritage of religious toleration and in some cases a conscious effort to tell the story in exactly this way—partly in order to prevent the cross from becoming an incitement to anti-Semitism.

Because that is precisely how the cross was interpreted in other times and places. Beginning in the writings and preachings of some of the church fathers, and becoming deeply entrenched in Western medieval Christianity, guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus was attributed to “the Jews”— first-century Jewish leaders, Jewish mobs crying for his blood, and the Jewish traitor Judas, as well as all Jews since then, sharing in collective guilt for this crime for all time.

I have talked with European Jews, survivors of the Holocaust, who tell stories of routinely being called “Christ-killers” by their classmates at school. One woman told me of having her head checked for horns, because her classmates had been taught that Jews were the Christ-killing spawn of Satan, and Satan has horns, right?

Almost no North American Christians are aware that for centuries the most dangerous time to be a Jew in Europe was Passion Week. Passion plays and other enactments of the sorrowful last hours of Jesus often incited mob violence against Jews. In some cities Jews were banned from showing themselves in public during Passion Week, in part for their own protection from angry gangs of Christians looking for revenge. And few Christians here are aware that some of the people who participated in slaughtering Jews during the Holocaust were, at least in part, motivated by religious passions.

A pastor friend who has screened the movie tells me that it is the bloodiest film he has ever seen, bar none. Parents and church leaders must keep this in mind before they consider sending entire families and youth groups to the movie next week. They must also keep in mind the importance of interpreting the film, and the cross itself, in a way that inspires commitment to Jesus and his kingdom of love and justice rather than hatred of Jews.

David Gushee is the Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. c. 2004 Religion News Service

Posted: 2/24/04

COMMENTARIES ON
'THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST':
An unethical evangelism: one pastor's perspective

By Keith Herron

This is the week “The Passion of the Christ” will be unleashed on the world, and the opening of Mel Gibson’s film on the brutal crucifixion of Christ does not bode well for the church.

Evangelical churches have been buying mind-boggling numbers of tickets and booking whole theaters for weeks now in a feeding frenzy that staggers the mind.

The manager of a local theater complex reported that one church bought 1,000 tickets and booked the theater for a 6: a.m. showing of the film on Wednesday, the day of the film’s opening. The church reported the tickets would be given away freely to church members with the purpose they would bring their non-Christian friends.

Today’s multi-screen cineplex is the cathedral for modern culture and the template for churches that wish to drop staid traditionalism that’s made them invisible to those outside the walls of the church. The church’s unabated desire to reach an elusive contra-Christian culture shows a numbing willingness to outshock the culture with the ancient story of Christ’s sufferings that’s safely sanitized.

On Wednesday, evangelical churches will be inviting non-believers to Gibson’s movie and then forcing a moment of decision on people who will have been jolted into a psychological moment of traumatic shock that resembles a victim pulled from an accident.

Reports from the many advance screenings describe the audience as stunned into raw silence. Many are in tears and unable to move. The film’s rating was at first considered a candidate for the NC-17 category because of the vivid drama and violent realism. Jody Dean, CBS News anchorman in Dallas, described the movie as an experience “on a level of primary emotion that is scarcely comprehensible.”

Churches should consider that testimony when pushing its members into attending the movie. Children and youth should be kept from seeing brutality that even the jaded movie industry deemed graphic.

Many churches have bought enough tickets to make agreements with the theater management to intrude into the silence of the close of the movie by offering the crowd an invitation to make commitments of salvation to Christ.

While attempting to “strike while the iron is hot,” the church in its attempt to open the doors of heaven to a culture that seldom shows such interest in things divine may become like the Christian zealots who march in front of the Planned Parenthood offices with overly-magnified pictures of aborted fetuses. Such fervor goes beyond anything Jesus would have done. Jesus was not about shocking people into faith. His methods for reaching people came from love and compassion.

Manipulating people in a moment of emotional distress is not evangelism. That kind of “invitation to Christ” comes from the Hell House approach that seeks to shock people into the kingdom. An experience many psychologists would consider traumatic does not make for disciples, only victims of the church’s inability to communicate the transforming character of Christ to our culture. This kind of raw, sensationalistic evangelism only highlights the church’s failure to communicate adequately with the world.

What response should the church consider?

Thoughtful, kind compassion of the kind that Christ offered Thomas would be a sound notion. Many have historically labeled Thomas as “unbelieving.” Perhaps Thomas was so jolted by what he saw on Calvary he was traumatically closed off and numbed into disbelief. Christ in kindness offered him his hands and opened up his robe for inspection giving him the space and the reflection to put the pieces together in his own mind until the picture of faith could be embraced.

The church has an opportunity for dialogue with the culture in the coming weeks about the Jesus who showed love all the way to the end. It shouldn’t blow this chance for meaningful conversation by turning it into a peep show with a pressure to make decisions in a moment of psychological vulnerability.

© 2004 by Keith D. Herron, senior pastor of Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo.

Posted: 2/24/04

COMMENTARIES ON
'THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST':
We don't weep enough

By Mariane Holbrook

I’ve never owned, nor would I wear a gold cross. Or one with diamonds or rubies or other precious stones. I submit that all costume jewelry crosses should be made of rough, unfinished wood, with splinters that pierce the flesh and disturb the soul.

I have seen obscenely large gold crosses hanging from the necks of ungodly rock stars and Hollywood celebrities who have no right to wear this precious symbol. I have seen crosses dangling from the ears of brazen, scantily clad dancers and singers who bring shame on the very One who hung on that cross for their sins.

As Protestants, we rightly dwell on the resurrection of Christ rather than what he endured on the cross. Not for a minute would I imitate other religious groups who seem permanently transfixed by the cross. Last year, a figure of Christ was removed from the cross in front of a local church. The priest lovingly explained that he wanted his congregation to begin emphasizing a risen Christ rather than a Christ still nailed to the cross. Protesting church members forced him to replace the figure, and his congregation was once again satisfied with tradition.

But do we, as followers of Christ, spend enough time contemplating his suffering, his agony, his bleeding, his crying out to his Father, his gasping for his last breath and finally, his death?

Do we, in our haste to celebrate Easter Sunday, hurry past, or worse, ignore the somber, dark hours on Friday, that time when we should be prostrate before him, remembering, thanking, praising him? Shouldn’t this be a time of discomfort, confronting our sins and realizing what an incomprehensible and terrible price was exacted from this God/man on our behalf?

The churches I have attended normally do not schedule Good Friday services. Indeed, most of us follow our regular routine, only casually glancing at the clock from noon to three o’clock, the time traditionally set aside to remember this awesome event. In our zeal to emphasize the emerald brilliance of the resurrection, we have all but forgotten the stark and total blackness of Calvary.

Philip Yancey, in his remarkable book, “The Jesus I Never Knew” wrote: “I still cannot fathom the indignity, the shame endured by God’s Son on earth, stripped naked, flogged, spat on, struck in the face, garlanded with thorns. ‘The idea of the cross should never come near the bodies of Roman citizens,’ said Cicero. For the Romans, crucifixion was the cruelest form of punishment, reserved for murder, slave revolts and other heinous crimes. Roman citizens were beheaded but never crucified.”

On Good Friday, I hope to spend some time alone in a secluded spot where I can reflect upon Christ’s unbelievable suffering.

I want to weep over the long, angry nails ripping into those beautiful, sensitive hands that tenderly stroked the heads of little children.

I want to cry over those feet that walked through the heated terrain to bring healing and comfort to the hurting and oppressed.

I want to dwell on those loving eyes from which tears of tender compassion freely poured, when he cried, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

I want to remember his agony, his humiliation, his pain and finally, his awful death to which he finally submitted to pay for my sins.

As the old gospel song so heartwrenchingly sobs:

I should have been crucified,

I should have suffered and died.

I should have hung on that cross in disgrace

But Jesus, God’s Son, took my place.

Yes. Dear God, yes.

Mariane Holbrook is a member of Traphill Baptist Church in Traphill, N.C.

Posted: 2/24/04

COMMENTARIES ON
'THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST':
A master storyteller presents a crucified Christ

By Jon Walker

Hollywood is notorious for typecasting, but the truth is we all typecast in some form or another, consciously or unconsciously putting people into little boxes and then insisting they stay there.

And perhaps that is why, when I heard Mel Gibson was making a film about the crucifixion, I immediately formed an image of Mad Max on the Via Dolorosa. My standard joke became, “Danny Glover and Mel Gibson arrive at the end of the movie to rescue Jesus from the Cross.”

Yet, artists grow and mature—which is why Woody Allen, who once made one-liner comedies, and Clint Eastwood, who once starred in spaghetti westerns, are now respected Academy Award-winning directors.

For that matter, so is Gibson, with an Oscar for “Braveheart.”

All that to say: “The Passion of the Christ” reveals Gibson as a maturing filmmaker in his prime as a storyteller, and the movie makes it nearly impossible to keep him typecast as the star of the Mad Max/Lethal Weapon-styled movies.

“The Passion of the Christ” is both beautiful and brutal, capturing an authentic human spirit that is often missing in biblical movies, those where everyone tends to act stiflingly serious and talk in pious this-is-all-so-important tones. Gibson’s “Passion” is full of real people who laugh and cry and sweat and, yes, they bleed.

The essence of a great poem is that it gets you to look at the familiar in a different way, and in that sense, this film is poetic. Just the fact that it is presented in the original languages allows you to see a familiar story and hear familiar words but from an entirely different angle (there are English subtitles). This is a film layered with artistry and historic metaphor, and if you look closely, I think you’ll see Gibson’s homage to some of the great master paintings of Christ’s Passion.

The poetic artistry starts with the opening frames, set in the Garden of Gethsemane, where you immediately realize this is no tepid tale, one traditionally told with a blue-eyed, blonde, surfer-dude Jesus sprinkling love and faith across the cinematic landscape as if it were pixie-dust tossed from Tinkerbelle’s wand. (Think good thoughts and you, too, can fly!)

Gibson’s Jesus has dark, ethnic features (probably closer to the way Jesus actually looked), and he’s so distraught as he begs the Father to release him from the suffering set before him that spit and snot drip from his face. A few moments later, you get a sense of the overwhelming abandonment Jesus must have felt when he returned to his disciples only to find them sleeping, and then he is tempted to break with the Father by an embodiment of Evil that re-appears throughout the movie. The temptations are not just about saving himself; they attempt to fan into flames a sense of despair.

The film’s pacing is taut, and the tension simmers but never boils over because of some well-crafted flashbacks that deepen the film’s emotional core. These flashbacks also explain some of the key relationships and critical events that led to the final 12 hours of Christ’s life.

Of particular note is a scene with Jesus, lean and calloused, working as a carpenter, engrossed, not in theology, but in carefully crafting a table. Evidently, one can be the Son of God and still find purpose and enjoyment in the ordinary tasks of life—a biblical message we often ignore.

This scene not only gives a rare glimpse of Jesus as a carpenter, but as it plays out, you see the playful interaction between Mary and Jesus as a mother and son who enjoy each other’s company. The scene reflects Gibson’s gift with humor, and it pulled an audible laugh from the audience.

Mary, portrayed by Maia Morgenstern, is shown as a real woman, full of faith but gripped by grief. No saintly icon, she struggles under the weight of what she is witnessing. The most memorable moment in the movie for me was a later scene, after the scourging of Jesus, where Mary got down on her hands and knees and began to mop up the blood with a cloth. Having watched my own wife care for two dead children, I thought the scene rang absolutely true in revealing a woman in grief and shock.

Jim Caviezel plays Jesus. He met Gibson when the director was developing a film on surfing (go figure!), and Caviezel came in to discuss a part. In the midst of the conversation, Caviezel said he wanted to suggest another film that would be far more important, and then the actor reached into his pocket and pulled out a pamphlet about Christ crucified.

What Caviezel didn’t know is that Gibson had been researching and thinking through the “Passion” movie for over a decade, and it was in that moment Gibson says he knew he was supposed to make the “Passion.”

Caviezel as Christ is clearly modeled after the Shroud of Turin, an ancient burial cloth inexplicably imprinted with the image of a crucified man, similar to a modern photographic negative. There are some who believe this is the burial shroud of Jesus, and the image provides a supernatural picture of Christ. In some scenes, Caviezel mirrors the shroud’s image, including the bruising and blood droplets.

Related to the Shroud, the film is naturally informed by a Catholic text (Gibson is a Catholic believer) and so some of the scenes dramatize the extra-biblical explanations for ancient “holy trinkets,” or the speculative stories of what may have happened as Christ walked the Via Dolorosa to Calvary.

Regardless of your own beliefs, the scenes serve the storyteller well and provide the necessary emotional depth to move this movie beyond a grueling glimpse into Roman cruelty.

Another way Gibson keeps you directly involved in the story is through the use of startling point-of-view shots based on the “eyes” of different characters. For instance, you’re upside down as Jesus is carried, head hanging upside down, from the scourging, and you’re on the ground looking at the feet of Jesus through the eyes of the woman saved from a stoning.

“Passion” is a tightly shot film, built largely around close-ups and medium frames that keep the images personal and within reach; don’t expect an abundance of Cecil B. DeMille-styled panoramics. Rather, Gibson keeps the story focused on the messy, little details that reveal what happened on the streets of ancient Jerusalem during this one dawn and day.

For instance, I like the fact that Peter’s denials of Christ are impulsive and quick, near hysterical denials made in the grip of fear, as opposed to the typical telling where the whole world comes to a stop to hear each denial. Unlike us, these men didn’t know the end of the story, and it’s likely they responded with real fear and confusion.

This kind of authenticity is refreshing in a biblical play, and that’s as good a transition as any into the violence of the film. Gibson says he wanted to shock people, forcing them to see just how horrific the Passion must have been, and I think he succeeds. By the end of the film, it’s doubtful you’d even want to see Osama Bin Laden put through the torture Jesus willfully receives.

But the violence is never gratuitous. This is a much more serious and aesthetic film than something like Mad Max or Lethal Weapon. The violence is there because it is a story about the bloody, violent, cruel death of a man. Frankly, I have trouble watching something like E.R. because I dislike the gore, yet, there was only one moment in the “Passion” when I had to look away, and that was during a particularly brutal moment when the Romans whipped Jesus.

While we’re on this subject, the movie is rated “R” because of the violence. Gibson, noting the graphic violence, says, “I don’t think kids younger than 13 should see it.” I would agree with this assessment.

Is Gibson’s “Passion” a perfect film? Of course, not. What film would be? I thought the opening minute or so was too dark and a baby-carrying embodiment of Evil during the scourging scenes confused some of the people around me (we were watching a rough cut).

Yet one way I gauge a good story is whether it leaves me wanting more and whether it makes me feel like jumping into the world of the characters. Certainly at the crucifixion, you want nothing more than to get away from the oppressive and horrendous cruelty, but the final 20 seconds of the film, a creative take on the Resurrection, leaves you wanting to walk out of the tomb with Jesus and see the joy of his disciples.

But most of all, I longed to join this joy-filled Jesus in his carpentry shop, becoming a friend as well as a disciple.

If you push past all the hype and all the controversy, and even all the plans of using the film for evangelism, I think you’ll find “The Passion of the Christ” is a great work of art, the product of a gifted storyteller striving toward a masterwork.

There was a time when the arts often spoke about God, and it wasn’t shocking to have a major artist create a work based on biblical themes. In fact, it was often through funding from the church that great artists were able to create their masterworks. Perhaps Gibson’s gritty, bloody film will usher in a new age, where the church returns to supporting artistic expression as a means of telling the old, old story.

Jon Walker is director of creativity at www.pastors.com

For a free download of Rick Warren’s sermon, “The Passion of Christ: God’s Plan For You,” go to http://www.pastors.com/pcom/specials/passionmessages.asp.

For a free e-mail devotional series about the Passion and Easter, visit the website of contemplative prayer author Tricia Rhodes at www.soulatrest.com/.

Posted: 2/24/04

COMMENTARIES ON
'THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST':
Who killed Jesus?

By Dennis R. Wiles

Jesus made the cover of Newsweek again. The February 16 edition has a picture of James Caviezel portraying Jesus in the upcoming movie The Passion of the Christ donning its cover. The cover story bears the headline, “Who Really Killed Jesus?”

I read this article by award-winning author Jon Meacham. It is such a biased article that plays loose with the facts that I have to respond to it. This article (and several others) is representative of the anti-Christian perspective that often characterizes the mainstream media. I like Newsweek and have subscribed to it for years—but Meacham’s words have to be countered in this instance.

He sets the stage for his critique of Gibson’s movie about Jesus by stating that The Passion is based on a literal interpretation of the biblical material in the four Gospels that describe the death of Jesus. Then he writes, “But the Bible can be a problematic source. Though countless believers take it as the immutable word of God, Scripture is not always a faithful record of historical events; the Bible is the product of human authors who were writing in particular times and places with particular points to make and visions to advance.”

He makes such a bold claim as this and doesn’t offer any proof to substantiate it. What “record of historical events” would he choose to use concerning the trial and death of Jesus Christ? Does he have access to some secret source that has just been discovered? The Gospels offer the historical account of the life of Jesus. We have multiple thousands of copies of the ancient Greek texts that have been historically preserved that record history’s greatest event.

He further claims that Gibson’s movie will elicit anti-Semitic sentiments because the Gospel writers were opposed to the “temple elite” and thus wrote biased accounts of the final hours of Christ’s life. He revises history at this point in his discussion with this erroneous, preposterous paragraph: “Most of the early Christians were Jewish and saw themselves as such. Only later, beginning roughly at the end of the first century, did some Christians start to view and present themselves as a people entirely separate from other Jewish groups. And for centuries still—even after Constantine’s conversion in the fourth century—some Jewish people considered themselves Christians. It was as the church’s theology took shape, culminating in the Council of Nicea in 325, that Jesus became the doctrinal Christ.”

Are you kidding me? Jesus is presented in the New Testament text itself as the Son of God. It did not take the church 300 years to conclude that! The distinction between Judaism and Christianity arose in the first generation church. Read Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

This is just a sampling of the kind of inaccuracies and judgmental bias that is reflected in the cover story of one of America’s most well known periodicals. Meacham chastises Gibson (and the Gospel writers) for putting too much blame on the Jews for the death of Jesus. He questions the historicity of the Bible in its claims that the Jews had such influence on the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate.

I would say to Mr. Meacham and all other media-types who will weigh in on this movie,

WE ALL KILLED JESUS!

The Gospel is not anti-Semitic. It is the antidote to sin! While a Jewish court convicted Jesus and a Roman one condemned Him, my sin kept him on the cross. He died for us and because of us.

The cross was controversial in its day—and it remains controversial in ours.

Jesus, keep me near the cross.

Dennis R. Wiles is pastor of First Baptist Church in Arlington.